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Chad Love: Hunting For Books
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Field Notes
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March 26, 2009
Chad Love: Hunting For Books
By Chad Love
Here are a couple reasons why you should never, ever miss your local public library book sale.
On the left is a first-edition "The Monkey Wrench Gang" by everyone's favorite misanthropic desert bard, Ed Abbey. On the right is a collection of stories by Havilah Babcock, one of the best writers to ever grace Field & Stream's pages.
The copy of "The Monkey Wrench Gang" is quite a find for a couple of reasons: One, of all Abbey's books only "Desert Solitaire" has had a greater impact on the modern environmental/conservation movement. Two: first editions of Abbey's books are very rare, very collectable and this one is worth more than a lot of the guns in my safe. I paid fifty cents for it.
And lest you discount Abbey as one of those "tree-huggin' environmentalists" consider this: he wrote the introduction to the 1984 re-issue of Vance Bourjaily's "The Unnatural Enemy: Essays on Hunting." And we all know that Vance Bourjaily's son is a pretty fair hunter himself.
While the Babcock book has little to no collector value, it possesses loads of intrinsic historical value for those of us who cherish the rapidly-disappearing tradition of sporting literature.
It seems strange in today's world of blogs, tweets, texting, IM's, and 100-word feature stories, but writers used to be able to write, to tell a story. And people used to read them.
Havilah Babcock was way before my time (and I'm no spring chicken anymore) so the only real chance someone of my generation (or the ones immediately prior and after) has of discovering his work is through books like this.
Most of them last one print run, and they're gone, scattered here and there. So those of us who seek out their words must haunt the used book stores, the garages sales and the public library cull sales. And every now and then we get lucky.
Try book hunting some time. The season never closes, there's no limit and while what you bag can't be eaten, it can certainly give you sustenance.
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Comments (12)
I have all of Babcock's books except for "I Don't Want to Shoot an Elephant." The Best of Babcock is probably a good representation of Babcock, but "My Health is Better in November," and "Jaybirds Go to Hell on Fridays" are also excellent. Babcock is my favorite outdoors writer of all time, with Nash Buckingham coming in a close second. As many of you are probably aware, Babcock was the dean of the english department as South Carolina U for a number of years. I can't imagine having such a cool proffesor. Not only was his style of writing absolutely exquisite, but the wide variety of topics he discussed is quite amazing. His stories ran the gammet from quail to bass to bream, and even turkey, although he only wrote two stories about turkey hunting that I am aware of. Two of his best are "The Turkey's Beard" and "The Stranger."
Great finds and great idea - now there's something else to hunt in the off season, for relatively modest cost. I was lucky enough to walk into a gun shop right after the wife of a deceased hunter brought in a bunch of his stuff. I walked out with several older books and some reloading stuff. Will have to hit the local library sales and the used bookstore around the corner.
Great find Chad!
I'm a little concerned you let the secret out! I probably own over two thousand books, in subjects, ranging from animals to Zygotes.
One of my greatest books, is a book by, Jesse Stuart, "The Man With The Bull Tongue Plow."
My father-in-law, commended and critiqued the author on his writing of this book.. They corresponded a couple of times through snail-mail while the author, Jesse Stuart was alive and well!
It was given to me by my late, great, father-in-law, Martin Matthias Schwarz.
He was known to have re-written Shakespeare, so the "common man" could understand and comprehend the writer, in a modern day language.
Libraries, garage sales, and flea markets are a haven for such treasures, and they are not buried very deep!
Chad - speaking of stories, there are some very experienced old farts (I say that with a respect) and younger whippersnappers on this site that have a great stories and the ability to tell them well. Heck, even if they aren't told well I'd still like to read them.
There isn't really a spot to post stories where they can easily be found. Is it possible to add a tab specifically for submitted stories? Of course, some stories might be worthy of print and they should submit those to a mag for pay, but there are a lot of stories that should just be shared. Any thoughts?
My grandmother was a voracious reader, up until her death at age 92. Going through the books on her bookshelf after she died (sadly, family had picked most of the rest of the house clean) I found a first edition, first printing of Winnie the Pooh. Maybe not worth anything to anyone else, but it was hers, now it's mine and you can't put a price on it. Same deal with the Colt Lightning I snatched from the vultures after my grandfather passed.
Chad Love, I've gotta ask you, although not on subject. I take it your the guy wearing orange cap and vest. But, who is that angry man looking over your shoulder?
Well, uhhh... actually Jim, I'm the angry-looking guy. I prefer to think of it as a nervous smile.
Thanks for the great suggestions. That is awesome how you got that book for 50 cents. One question though, you said that it is worth more than most of the guns in your safe... thats pretty impressive. How much do you think it is worth?
So Chad, you are the guy on the left who looks like Wayne from the Wonder Years TV show. I got that, so who is the guy on the right who looks a bit like Shaggy (from Scooby Doo)?
Just wonderin'?
Jim
Chad
So? How did it go?
SBW
It's not a rare book but I have an amusing book by Harry Vanderweide called "Grouse Foolish." IMO any yankee hunter would get a real laugh out of it.
Funny, the guy on the right looks more like an Oklahoma redneck. I say that with utmost respect for my friends and fellow rednecks in Oklahoma.
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Chad - speaking of stories, there are some very experienced old farts (I say that with a respect) and younger whippersnappers on this site that have a great stories and the ability to tell them well. Heck, even if they aren't told well I'd still like to read them.
There isn't really a spot to post stories where they can easily be found. Is it possible to add a tab specifically for submitted stories? Of course, some stories might be worthy of print and they should submit those to a mag for pay, but there are a lot of stories that should just be shared. Any thoughts?
I have all of Babcock's books except for "I Don't Want to Shoot an Elephant." The Best of Babcock is probably a good representation of Babcock, but "My Health is Better in November," and "Jaybirds Go to Hell on Fridays" are also excellent. Babcock is my favorite outdoors writer of all time, with Nash Buckingham coming in a close second. As many of you are probably aware, Babcock was the dean of the english department as South Carolina U for a number of years. I can't imagine having such a cool proffesor. Not only was his style of writing absolutely exquisite, but the wide variety of topics he discussed is quite amazing. His stories ran the gammet from quail to bass to bream, and even turkey, although he only wrote two stories about turkey hunting that I am aware of. Two of his best are "The Turkey's Beard" and "The Stranger."
Great finds and great idea - now there's something else to hunt in the off season, for relatively modest cost. I was lucky enough to walk into a gun shop right after the wife of a deceased hunter brought in a bunch of his stuff. I walked out with several older books and some reloading stuff. Will have to hit the local library sales and the used bookstore around the corner.
Great find Chad!
I'm a little concerned you let the secret out! I probably own over two thousand books, in subjects, ranging from animals to Zygotes.
One of my greatest books, is a book by, Jesse Stuart, "The Man With The Bull Tongue Plow."
My father-in-law, commended and critiqued the author on his writing of this book.. They corresponded a couple of times through snail-mail while the author, Jesse Stuart was alive and well!
It was given to me by my late, great, father-in-law, Martin Matthias Schwarz.
He was known to have re-written Shakespeare, so the "common man" could understand and comprehend the writer, in a modern day language.
Libraries, garage sales, and flea markets are a haven for such treasures, and they are not buried very deep!
My grandmother was a voracious reader, up until her death at age 92. Going through the books on her bookshelf after she died (sadly, family had picked most of the rest of the house clean) I found a first edition, first printing of Winnie the Pooh. Maybe not worth anything to anyone else, but it was hers, now it's mine and you can't put a price on it. Same deal with the Colt Lightning I snatched from the vultures after my grandfather passed.
Chad Love, I've gotta ask you, although not on subject. I take it your the guy wearing orange cap and vest. But, who is that angry man looking over your shoulder?
Well, uhhh... actually Jim, I'm the angry-looking guy. I prefer to think of it as a nervous smile.
Thanks for the great suggestions. That is awesome how you got that book for 50 cents. One question though, you said that it is worth more than most of the guns in your safe... thats pretty impressive. How much do you think it is worth?
So Chad, you are the guy on the left who looks like Wayne from the Wonder Years TV show. I got that, so who is the guy on the right who looks a bit like Shaggy (from Scooby Doo)?
Just wonderin'?
Jim
Chad
So? How did it go?
SBW
It's not a rare book but I have an amusing book by Harry Vanderweide called "Grouse Foolish." IMO any yankee hunter would get a real laugh out of it.
Funny, the guy on the right looks more like an Oklahoma redneck. I say that with utmost respect for my friends and fellow rednecks in Oklahoma.
Post a Comment